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WELCOME to Poetry Matters, the blog of Ireland’s Dedalus Press, bringing you news, interviews, samples and much more.

Ross Thompson

Two Poems by Ross Thompson

Two new poems by Ross Thompson, introduced by the poet IN OCTOBER OF 2019, a few months before the world temporarily fell apart, my family took a half-term trip to Edinburgh. Like all vacations, it offered an opportunity to exist

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Mark Roper. Dedalus Press

Grasshopper Warbler by Mark Roper

Poet Mark Roper ventures out along Waterford’s Anne River, hoping for a sighting, or hearing, of the grasshopper warbler A GRASSHOPPER WARBLER is a small, inconspicuous, secretive bird, which likes to spend its time deep inside tangled vegetation, often near

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Polina Cosgrave

Poetry Affair by Polina Cosgrave

Russian-born Irish-based poet Polina Cosgrave on the poetry affair, or the heady attractions and transformative power of an engagement with poetry POETRY HAPPENS in isolation. It is taken like a drug, when nobody sees. You meet poetry like a lover.

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poetry from Ireland, Dedalus Press, Liu Xun

The Crane, Foreword by Liu Xun

Liu Xun introduces The Crane, Selected Poems of Yau Noi (Dedalus Press, 2022), translated by Liu Xun and Harry Clifton Chinese literature has always been almost too immense to talk about, for myself or for many lecturers working in institutions

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poetry from Ireland, Dedalus Press, , Romance Options

Romance Options, The Introduction

Leeanne Quinn and Joseph Woods introduce Romance Options: Love Poems for Today, their life- and love-affirming anthology of new Irish love poems, published by Dedalus Press in 2022 WHEN WE WERE INVITED by Dedalus Press last autumn to take on

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Patrick Cotter

Ars Poetica by Patrick Cotter

In a wide-ranging and thought-provoking ars poetica, poet, editor and festival director Patrick Cotter answers our occasional 7 questions on poetry. Your poems are noted for their marked lack of sentimentality. Is poetry devoid of sentimentality merely a mark of

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Thomas Kinsella by Niall Hartnett - Dedalus Press, poetry from Ireland and the world

Thomas Kinsella (1928–2021)

AN ART OF BRILLIANT FRAGMENTS THOMAS KINSELLA, who died yesterday, 22 December 2021, aged 93, was among the most significant voices in contemporary Irish writing, celebrated as a translator and editor, a political commentator in a way that was almost

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John Kelly photo by John Minihan - Dedalus Press, poetry from Ireland and the world

7 Questions on Poetry: John Kelly

Do you remember how or why you started writing poems? The very first poems were written in the classroom. They were set tasks. Commissions if you will. The teacher would instruct us to write a poem about an elephant, or

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Mary Noonan - Dedalus Press

7 Questions on Poetry: Mary Noonan

How/when did you start to write? I’ve loved poetry for as long as I remember – Keats was a favourite when I was a teenager. I did a BA in English and French, and relished the immersion in literature in

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Leeanne Quinn’s Some Lives

Circling the Subject: Leeanne Quinn’s second collection of poems, Some Lives, introduced by Aoife Lynch Leeanne Quinn’s second collection, is a rich and generous exploration of how poetry is made and how it makes meaning. Simultaneously intimate and outward-looking, Some

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Poetry and/for Jam

Poetry publishing is, at the best of times, an odd business. But yesterday’s unusual exchange with a customer was of the kind that makes the more difficult parts worthwhile. In the late morning I received a call from what looked like

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The Word Ark Postcards

FOLLOWING is our series of 5 postcards, issued in June 2020 to mark the publication of The Word Ark: A Pocket Book of Animal Poems, and included free with the first 100 copies of the book purchased directly from this

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Isolation PoemCards

FOLLOWING is a selection of our Isolation PoemCards, chosen from the many submitted via the comments section on the Dedalus Press Facebook page, during March and April 2020. Thanks to all the poets, and the many hundreds of others who

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Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, one of the contributors to Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets, on home, belonging and the writing life - Writing Home

The Arts as Anchor

Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, one of the contributors to Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets, considers home, belonging and the writing life I had found an aerial shot of Dublin on Google, laid out like an intricate carpet, glowing under the rise

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James J McAuley

James J McAuley, an Interview

WE WERE DELIGHTED to be directed to an interview with the distinguished Irish poet and poetry teacher James J McAuley, conducted by Phyllis Silver in 1983 for a programme once again available on Spokane Public Radio.   Jim, to his

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